PHILADELPHIA –
So much for a weeklong vacation. An extended stay at the Sheraton usually
spells rest and relaxation. Being just blocks away from Philadelphia’s
historic district usually means there will be lots of sightseeing. And
downtime with nine other college journalists usually translates into some
lively nightlife.

That’s what usually
happens.

The past week at
the Sports Journalism Institute, a minority program tied into the annual
Associated Press Sports Editors convention, was anything but a fairytale.

It was like
being in sports journalism boot camp, and the only break came when my head
hit the pillow for six or seven hours each night.

I looked forward
to going to Philadelphia after experiencing the grind of covering high
school tennis for four straight days during the second week of my summer
internship at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Little did I
know my week would be filled with guest speakers, impromptu story
assignments and quirky things called “sports checks.”

The guest
speakers brought an entirely new light to the world of sports journalism,
claiming the brief reprieve we enjoyed while covering Philadelphia Phillies
games over the weekend soon would be replaced by chaos and competition among
ourselves.

“The fake ones
never survive,” said Stephen A. Smith, who works as an NBA analyst for
ESPN and is a sports columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“If you’re not about the
blue-collar approach of putting in the work, you’re not going to survive.
You can’t smile your way to the top. You can’t talk your way there
either.”

Claire Smith, an
assistant sports editor at theInquirer, talked about the obstacles
that minorities face in a White-dominated industry.

“Being a minority, you just always
have to be prepared for the ugly,” said Smith, who gained national
popularity in 1984 when she was physically forced out of the San Diego
Padres clubhouse during the NLCS.

“You have to work hard, and you have
to carry yourself professionally, maybe more so than your peers.”

The sudden story
assignments weren’t that bad, considering that most of the sports editors
we had to profile were attending workshops at the hotel during the week.

It was the
sports checks, often conducted by New York Daily News sports editor
Leon Carter, that did me in.

The questions
sometimes were so obscure that it was impossible to pass, especially when
Carter changed the grading scale from day to day.

Here are a
couple examples:

Question: Who
was the first Black golfer? Answer: John Shippen.

Minus one on my
paper.

Q. What was the
back-page headline of the June 20 New York Daily News? A. “Goose
chase.”

Another zero
where a plus should have been. We were in Philadelphia, not New York City.

How many
All-Star Game appearances has New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter made?
Five.

Finally got one
right. Call it a lucky guess.

Through
everything, including the mandatory memorization of the poem “Invictus,”
the Sports Journalism Institute surprisingly made me stronger.

It caused me to
realize that you’re not always going to get what you want from this job,
but sometimes you just have to suck it up.

Tracking down
sources isn’t easy. Then again, neither is life in general.

And, like Smith
said, in order to be a sportswriter, you must have “alligator skin.”